Premier Lord refuses to do a deal with the Federal Government on the issue of childcare.

His initial response to the signing of an agreement with the Federal Government (that would have delivered $100 million to the Province) was that funding for childcare and funding for the refurbishment of the Point Lepreau nuclear generating station should be linked.

When that didn’t fly, he shifted to the notion that New Brunswick’s childcare needs are different from the rest of Canada and therefore terms of funding should be different for the Province.

Some make the argument that the proposed child care program is great for Toronto and the bigger provinces of Canada but not for a smaller province, like New Brunswick, where a larger percentage of the population resides in a rural community.

Others make the argument that a tax-funded childcare system is unfair to those who have no children or to those who provide homecare for their children. The latter is a spurious argument. If it applied to the real world, people who don’t use healthcare wouldn’t pay for healthcare through their tax payments. People without children in school wouldn’t pay property taxes. People who were employed wouldn’t pay their EI premiums.

We all pay taxes, based on our ability to pay. We all benefit from those tax payments in some way or another. The roads we drive on, as bad as they may be, are paid for with tax dollars. Healthcare, education, public works, economic development, tourism promotion, energy, fisheries and forestry management, agricultural subsidies, etc., etc. are all funded with tax dollars. Not everyone benefits from a specific program. Not everyone can match their tax investment to a specific service return.

On the matter of childcare, governments have made the decision to intervene with dollars and programs. Some argue for direct subsidization. Others push for tax-deductibility. A tiny few advocate tax credits.

Not many argue the case against government-funded childcare. It’s easier to support the notion that families, with both parents working outside the home, need help with the cost of daycare. It’s even easier to say that a single parent working outside the home needs help with daycare.

To provide context for contrary views, one might note that a growing number of businesses provide on-site daycare services as a means of attracting and retaining skilled workers. It begs the question, is government-funded childcare necessary if the private sector is willing to help fund it?

People marry and people cease to be married. Either way, they have children. That’s not the state’s problem. It’s also not to say that the state couldn’t take an interest in population growth by offering state-funded daycare programs but I don’t think the intent of today’s policy is to grow the population.

Most children of the 21st century come into the world as a result of a conscious decision by the parents to have them. In a traditional world, the parents are and should be responsible for the care and upbringing of those children. When there is a market need for skilled labour, the market could and often does provide daycare services as an employment benefit but the practice is not universal.

An employer, without need for a labour-force encumbered by children shouldn’t be required to provide daycare services. A government without need to promote economic activity shouldn’t be investing in universal childcare, even if there is a social case to be made for helping single-parents. We could do that with direct payment subsidies or we could do it with tax credits (as distinct from tax deductions) on the assumption that working parents would be earning taxable income.

In my view, the case has not been made for a government-funded, universal daycare system in Canada and/or in New Brunswick. The Federal Government has put $100 million on the table for childcare in the Province. That’s a big sum of money but it would do very little for individuals if made available on a universal basis. Do the math.

We have something in the order of 217,000 households in this Province. Let’s assume for a moment that 25% of those households have 21/2 children at home between the age of one and twelve. That would leave us with almost 135,000 children in care mode. Assuming an annual payment of $100 million by the Federal Government, the amount available for each child would be $740 a year.

Yes, that would be a help but if we assume further that an average daycare cost might be $100 to $200 a week per child, we’re only talking about a four to eight week cost holiday per child. This would be a bonus, but not enough to make a life-changing difference for most people, particularly a single parent.

If the funding was targeted exclusively at single-parent families and one assumed that 10% of childcare households are headed by a single parent, the payment could shoot up from $740 a year to $4,608 a year per child. That would be huge. Even if the lowest-paid, dual income families were added to the payment roster, it would still be significant.

Is Premier Lord acting responsibly by holding out for a rural-based childcare formula?

My view is that he has his cards mixed up. The issue isn’t rural versus urban childcare. The issue is who reaps the benefit of a national childcare program? At this point, the benefits and/or the return on tax-investment are not clear. In the absence of more persuasive information, I’d rather see the money invested in the post-secondary education of our children. Improve the quality of education.

Make it more accessible by lowering the cost and it will bring new economic opportunity to the Province.